"If you would tell me something more, I might help you," answered Orsino.
"You?" She paused. "I believe you would, if you could," she added, thoughtfully.
"You know that I would. Perhaps I can, as it is, in ignorance, if you will direct me."
A sudden light gleamed in Maria Consuelo's eyes and then died away as quickly as it had come.
"After all, what could you do?" she asked with a change of tone, as though she were somehow disappointed. "What could you do that others would not do as well, if they could, and with a better right?"
"Unless you will tell me, how can I know?"
"Yes—if I could tell you."
She went and sat down in her former seat and Orsino took a chair beside her. He had expected to renew the acquaintance in a very different way, and that he should spend half an hour with Maria Consuelo in talking about apartments, about the heat and about the places she had visited. Instead, circumstances had made the conversation an intimate one full of an absorbing interest to both. Orsino found that he had forgotten much which pleased him strangely now that it was again brought before him. He had forgotten most of all, it seemed, that an unexplained sympathy attracted him to her, and her to him. He wondered at the strength of it, and found it hard to understand that last meeting with her in the spring.
"Is there any way of helping you, without knowing your secret?" he asked in a low voice.
"No. But I thank you for the wish."